Lack of association between smoking and DNA fragmentation in the spermatozoa of normal men

Male factor infertility patients can have anomalies in their sperm nuclei, displaying high levels of loosely packaged chromatin and damaged DNA. The p rimary objectives of this study were to compare the extent of DNA fragmenta tion in the spermatozoa of healthy light and heavy smokers versus non-smoke rs, and to investigate its correlation with concentrations of the smoking m arkers cotinine and cadmium. A secondary objective was to compare the conce ntrations of blood cadmium and serum cotinine with corresponding concentrat ions in seminal plasma, Ninety-seven healthy male volunteers were divided i nto three groups: non-smokers, light and heavy smokers. There was no differ ence between the three groups with respect to age, number of ejaculations p er week, serum testosterone concentration, and parameters of semen analysis , The percentages of DNA fragmentation in spermatozoa were not statisticall y different in the heavy smokers (12.11%), light smokers (11.66%) and non-s mokers (20.41%). Serum and seminal plasma concentrations of cotinine mere s ignificantly higher in heavy smokers compared with the other groups (P < 0. 0001). Median values for blood cadmium concentration were higher in heavy s mokers (4.50 mu g/l) than in light smokers (0.20 mu g/l) and non-smokers (0 .20 mu g/l) (P < 0.001). Cadmium concentration in seminal plasma was signif icantly higher in heavy smokers (0.20 mu g/l) than in light smokers (0.10 m u g/l) and non-smokers (0.10 mu g/l) (P < 0.05). In summary, our results in dicate no association between smoking and DNA fragmentation in the spermato zoa of healthy men.